


Nameless

by seleneheart



Category: Riddle-Master Trilogy - Patricia A. McKillip
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Canon, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 08:29:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18687829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seleneheart/pseuds/seleneheart
Summary: After the war, Rood is grieving





	Nameless

The land-heir of An walked into his rooms, setting the bottle of Herun wine on the low table and stripping off his gloves. He poured a glass and went to the window of the tall tower, looking down over Anuin. The day was ending, the people far below were gradually scattering to their homes, to their families. His own family was fragile, grief making them brittle.

Crows flapped around the tower, speaking riddles that he no longer had the will to solve, part of the land-law that he had no interest in, though the instinct for it was now his inheritance.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way, he was not the one who was supposed to be closeted with the Lords of the Three Portions, listening to them bicker over reparations for the war.

He missed Duac with an ache that would never leave him, and only a small part of that was for his brother’s legendarily unshakeable temper. Their father would drive a man to drink, but Duac remained unperturbed.

Until recently. First, he had lost his temper, then he had gotten himself killed.

Rood smiled grimly, letting the weakening light fall on the cerise wine in his cup. “Already has me drinking.”

There were other sorrows from the war. One in particular, Rood had avoided, but the crows made him wonder, idly, if his questions would ever be answered.

As if in response to his thought, the flock descended on a falcon, harrowing the predator, diving on him with outraged screeches. The raptor dodged and spread his wings, soaring upwards to circle the tower. He landed on the window ledge beside Rood with a crash of wings, his far-seeing eyes wild and glittering.

“Do I know you?” the prince inquired, but he turned his eyes to the sea, the ever changing element from which Rood’s present grief had arisen.

“Yes.”

Rood turned back, and he was there, sitting in the window, dangling long legs over the precipitous drop, indifferent to the possibility of falling and smashing himself on the streets of Anuin.

The prince stared, dark brows creased, examining every feature of his visitor, trying to see the man he once knew. The hair and eyes were the same, both golden, the color of oak or beer. The expression in the eyes was one he had seen a thousand times before, but . . . “No. You’re a stranger, not the man I knew. Not . . . . “

But the hard stone of loss that had lodged in his chest pressed inwards, choking his voice, tightening his throat.

“Not the man you sent away to answer an impossible riddle?” The voice was gentle, but Rood nodded, knowing that is was his own insistence that had set the unalterable chain of consequences into motion.

A hand reached out, and then dropped away. “I am not blaming you . . . not really. My destiny was never something I could escape, not matter how much I protested. If not you, then something else would have pushed me into action.”

“And I don’t know your name anymore.” That sorrow was the one he could not evade or endure. The person sitting in the window with him was not the man that he had loved so fiercely for so long.

“Yes, you do.”

This time the hands did not hesitate, but cradled his face while firm lips connected with his mouth. The currents of desire that had been there since they had met still flowed between them, but underneath the human pull, Rood’s newly awakened land-instinct felt the immense leashed power of the man, power that kept them from falling to the cobbles below as the kiss suddenly deepened.

Rood fell into the kiss, conscious of nothing except the body under his hands that was once again familiar. When they pulled apart, both were flushed and gasping. Rood smiled, having his answer at last.

“Morgon.”


End file.
